The giveaway of Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2 is over, and today starts the five days of the book that made it possible for me to quit my day job. Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1 started the whole thing off. It can be obtained in the UK here. As mentioned earlier, the next book will be Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3, since the way the KDP days worked out didn’t give me five days for promotion at the end of the month (the current period for that book ends on October 29th).

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1 was, obviously, the first book in the Exodus series, which now stands at eighteen books, twelve in the main series, four in the Machine War series, and two in the Tales of the Empire short story collections. The series had been bestseller on Amazon lists in the US and UK in Space Opera and Military Science Fiction. The series has sold about one hundred and eighty thousand copies, and was the driving force in my being able to become a full-time author. Book 13 of the main series will be coming out by mid-November, the fifth book of Machine War in about January in 2018. Empires at War will probably reach fifteen books, while Machine War is planned for six. I will also do at least one more short story collection, and in 2019 I will start on a new Exodus series, telling the stories of humankind’s journey to the stars and the establishment of the Empire. I will be moving on to other series, including the Kinship War series I will be doing for Arc Manor, but Exodus will always be in mind, and I will try to revisit it when I can. And now for the blurb.

Humanity’s worst nightmare has again come out of the Dark. Can a human race in turmoil survive?

It’s a Fight to the Finish as Two Interstellar Empires go Toe to Toe.

When the human race faces extermination at the hands of an expanding species, the last survivors travel a thousand years to reestablish the race ten thousand light years away. It is now a thousand years after the birth of the New Terran Empire. The race has aggressively expanded during that time, with a fleet that has never lost a war against an alien species. But the signs are there, the old enemy is back, and the Fleet will face its greatest challenge in a foe fifty times their size.

Science fiction in the tradition of Anderson and Weber, where the physics of normal and hyperspace dictate the strategy and tactics. Enormous fleets battle across the immensity of space with advanced technologies. Can the proud human Fleet hold off the tide of an advancing enemy, rallying allies and deploying new tech? Or will the conquerors achieve what they could not two thousand years before, and end the existence of the upstarts?

I put Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution, up on Amazon last night, so it should be out on all the Amazon sites around the world. In fact, it has already sold some copies in the US without any notifications by me. And someone in the UK must have stayed up all night reading, then gave it a five star review. It can be found on Amazon UK here. This is, as titled, the fourth book in the series, Machine Wars, which takes place outside of the Empire. Humanity had developed autonomous war machines centuries before, and, as they always seem to do, they revolted. The Empire thought they had destroyed all of them, but one got away, and reestablished itself outside the Empire. Its mission, to kill all life, paying particular attention to the intelligent variety. I originally started this series so I could have another bunch of stories to play with when I was at a dead end in Empires at War. Anyway, I have a trip to prepare for, and will be blogging about when I get back. The new Website will be up next month, and I’ll post my panels at DragonCon as soon as I know them. And here’s an excerpt.

“I’m still not really sure what they’re up to, ma’am,” said the fleet tactical officer, Captain Lyndsey Quan, looking up from her board.

The plot was showing the thousands of enemy ships, twice as many as they had picked up when they first entered the system, moving out to meet them. The ships were boosting at various rates, and it seemed the Machines were trying to get their forces into close engagement range en mass. Bednarczyk wasn’t sure if that was the smart play, since a lot of those ships would be taking a longer time reaching her, which meant she could bring them under long range fire for a much greater period of time.

“Send orders to Admiral Hahn,” said Beata to the fleet com officer. “I want him to move his ships around in hyper and set up to take the antimatter production satellites under fire from that point. He is to continue firing at his prerogative.”

Tiberius Hahn had been her battle fleet commander, in charge of the bulk of the combat ships, since the Battle of Bolthole. His ships were all hyper VI, lea by a brand new superbattleship, one of the last to come off the building slips. He had one half of her capital ships, but most importantly forty percent of the wormholes. As long as they were out here beyond the barrier they could maneuver around the system before the enemy could get to any of them.

“And what the hell is that?” she asked, pointing to the very large icon on the plot, moving out of the orbit of one of the closer gas giants at twenty gravities. “Is it what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s a planet killer, then yes ma’am, that’s what it is.”

“So this is where the last one is,” said Captain James Rodriguez, her chief of staff.

“If you assume that’s the last one,” said Beata, looking back at the old captain. “That’s an assumption I’m not willing to make. And I definitely don’t want that thing closing with us.”

The planet killer was a hundred kilometers in diameter, with armor over five kilometers thick. It had lasers that could vaporize any ship in her fleet at under a light minute’s distance, and particle beam generators more powerful than her wormhole weapons. Its major weaknesses were its acceleration and its terminal velocity for entering hyper. It could only accelerate at twenty gravities, making it a scow compared to any of her ships. And it could jump to hyper at a maximum of point one light, verses the point three of her ships. It was a devastating offensive weapon, since, if it was coming into a system and heading toward something that needed defending, it had to be stopped, which could mean coming into close range. As a defensive weapon it was not quite as powerful. It could be avoided, and if in orbit around something important, it could be bypassed by moving launching platforms to different vectors. If she had been in charge of the thing, it would have remained hidden near one of the most important assets of the system, ready to use its lasers wide beam to take out incoming missiles. Or possibly catch one of her task groups unawares.

“Shall we launch on it, ma’am?”

“Not yet. We have missiles with warheads in the tubes, and they can destroy those with wide angle lasers. Which, if they are using their computer brains, that thing will be putting out continuously within the next couple of hours, well before our weapons can reach them. We’ll wait for those shots.”

“We should be getting visual on the supermetal planetoid at any minute ma’am.”

They had picked up the graviton signals of missiles engaging at three of the other five planetoids, and the fifth and sixth would be registering soon. They had assumed they were doing damage to those planetoids, but they really didn’t know. Now would come confirmation of at least one strike.

The view, brought in clear through gravity lens telescope, showed the planetoid with its defensive ships in orbit. There were also some orbital defense platforms, lasers and missile batteries. The surface was a maze of machinery. Accelerator tubes, fusion reactors, millions of square kilometers of cooling systems. What they couldn’t tell was if any of that machinery was weaponry, though Beata had to assume it was there.

Something flared on the view, one of the incoming missiles engaged and destroyed, followed by more. The orbital weapons and ships could take them out quickly, if there weren’t too many. And there were eight hundred missiles coming in at point nine light, in an interval of less than a second. Followed by two more after that. Almost a hundred missiles had flared in space before the first hit was generated, one weapon striking a destroyer class robot warship, converting it to vapor. Two more destroyers followed, then the prize, a battleship. Close detonations took out groupings of orbital platforms, some more damaged smaller warships. The first wave passed with no hits on the planetoid, though the defenses were degraded. And they still knew nothing about surface defenses.

The second wave came in and destroyed more of the orbital assets, ships and platforms. Now the weapons on the planet opened up as a greater mass of weapons made it through the outer defenses. Lasers, particle beams and close in projectile weapons took out over two hundred weapons, most of those that made it past the outer defenses. And the first two hits were generated on that surface. Bright flashes spread out over tens of thousands of square kilometers, digging deep into the surface, gouging large craters. All machinery in those areas was totally vaporized, while the thermal wave radiating out destroyed a much larger area, and the seismic waves toppled structures and ripped connecting infrastructure apart further out.

The third wave came in, also losing most of its number while taking out more of the outer defenses, including a second battleship. Surface installations again hit them, but almost forty made it through. The result was almost total devastation on the surface, entire supermetal factories, thousands of reactors, millions of square kilometers of heat exchangers, blotted out of existence. The thermal wave rolled around the surface, meeting on the other side, leaving no working facilities their wake.

“Yes,” said the tactical officer, pumping a fist in the air.

Bednarczyk was satisfied with the result. Assuming the enemy didn’t lose this system at this time, it would take months to build the machinery for new production plants, and more months to put them in place and get them running. On planetoids that might take even longer to get down to an efficient temperature for making the metals.

Now, if only the other strikes go so well, thought the admiral. There was no reason to think they wouldn’t. This strike had been overkill. The planetoid could have been swept clean with half the hits they had achieved.

“Admiral Hahn’s force has jumped into hyper and are starting to work their way around, ma’am.”

Yes, everything was working out well. Too well. And that was worrisome. And the clock was still ticking.

This will be a short post with the exception of the excerpt. I have been battling sleep apnea and now have the wonderful addition of a throbbing tooth that will probably need a root canal in the future. Here’s hoping that antibiotics will take care of it for this flare up, and I can get it taken care of a couple months from now.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search and Destroy is out on Amazon Kindle, and should be out in paperback in a week. It should be available on all the Amazons worldwide, but I will only give the links to Amazon.US and Amazon.UK, since those are my two largest markets. This is the tenth volume in the main storyline, and the fourteenth book in the Exodus Universe overall. Right now the plan is to do twenty books in the main storyline, which makes this the end of the first half of that series. I will also continue the Machine War series for at least five books, and have some more Tales of the Empire short collections planned. And then? Well, I have this idea to go back to the beginning and tell the story of how the Empire began, from the flight from the Ca’cadasan invasion through the reestablishment of the human species as a power to be reckoned with. After that? Well, I have a lot of ideas for other Space Opera series, Fantasy series, Alternate History series. Alternate History is a long time love of mine, and I have some ideas I think will do very well in that marketplace. But I still have a long way to go with the Exodus series.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10 follows the action on both of the fronts of the war, as well as the guerrilla naval war with the Fenri. It also offers a look into the workings of the Ca’cadasan Empire, from the halls of power to the commanders on the fronts. An Empire that has rolled over all opposition in its past, and now finds itself facing a powerful coalition that is not about to lie down and let them have their way. As said before in other blogs this is a big war in a big Galaxy, with a lot going on. It was never meant to be a series where one side comes up with the winning superweapon and the war is suddenly over. Instead, it’s a long back and forth battle for supremacy, with setbacks along the way. And now for an excerpt.

PO 1st Winston Nagawa stood in the hanger of the Scranton, armored up, wondering how in the hell he got into such a situation. It was bad enough to have to be aboard a warship during combat, but to take place in a boarding operation. It struck him as a bad idea, especially in hyperspace. He had images of pirates swinging across from the deck of one planetary ocean ship to the deck of another on ropes that hung from creaking masts. Instead, he would be exiting one ship that was moving through space at a significant percentage of light speed onto another doing the same.

“You ready, PO?” asked the naval officer who would be in charge of the assault. A Lieutenant JG engineer from the Scranton, in command of a Marine platoon and a couple score of spacers.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, sir,” answered Nagawa, looking around the hangar at the other armored figures. Thirty-three Marines in battle armor, some heavy, along with thirty spacers wearing their shipboard medium armor. This was team Alpha, which had two initial targets aboard the liner. The engineering section, which contained the only means of blowing up the ship. And the passenger sections along the way, where almost all of the ship’s crew and many of the civilians should be located. Team Bravo, thirty-three Marines and twenty spacers, under command of the Marine commander of Scranton, would be going in on the one hyper capable shuttle available. They would target the bridge, where all the command and control systems converged, and the auxiliary control station.

“You make sure that nothing happens to you on the way to engineering,” ordered Lt. Mishara with a smile. “You’re the only one who knows his way around this engineering section.”

“It’s not exactly the same as the ship I served on, sir,” commented Nagawa.

“Still closer than anything the rest of us have seen, PO.”

A signal buzzed over the com, and every person in the hangar tensed. “Team Alpha. Check your environmentals. Mission is a go. Mission start time, two minutes.”

Nagawa ordered his suit to lower his faceplate and looked over the diagnostics of all his systems. Everything was a go. He checked the particle beam rifle hanging around his neck and made sure the proton pack was seated properly and that it was powered up. The same with the backup pistol holstered by his side. His HUD was showing a timer, and when it hit one minute and thirty seconds he went ahead and linked into the ship’s tactical system, in time to see the light cruiser’s laser rings fire brief beams of energy, striking singular points on the liner. The beams were invisible, the strikes were not, and hull alloy flared with each strike. The cruiser rotated around the liner, firing. One beam came back, hitting the cruiser and doing minimal damage, just before being taken out.

“Liner’s defenses offline. Launching shuttle.”

On the other side of the cruiser the starboard hangar opened and the hyper capable shuttle flew out into hyperspace, curving around the ships and taking up a station on the reverse side of the liner.

“Prepare for movement. Twenty seconds.”

The hatch of the hangar everyone had been standing in slid inward, then split and moved out of the way to both sides. The side of the liner was a couple of kilometers away and moving closer. In seconds they were in close proximity, and the space between was enclosed in the combined hyperfields of the two ships. Magnetic grapples held the two ships together, and Nagawa hoped that the tractor was a secure link. Otherwise, they might be falling out into hyperspace, to their doom.

“Opening up the Star’s hangar,” came across the tactical net. A bright flash appeared on the hull across from the boarding party, alloy flaring and vaporizing into space. The cruiser put the full power of one ring into the hatch, an eight meter wide spotlight beam that burned through the thin hull of the commercial craft in a couple of seconds.

“Boarding party, go,” came across the general com.

Winston wanted to go at that moment, to get the crossing over with. That wasn’t his spot. The initial crossing went to the first squad of the Marines. Twelve heavy battle suits, flying out through the cold plasma field over the hangar hatch, into the forty meters of empty space, and through the opening on the hatch of the liner’s hangar. The Marines went through two at a time, their eyes sweeping the hangar as they entered. Shouts rang out over the com, followed by a short scream. A part of the still intact hangar hatch glowed, as if some beam weapon had struck the other side.

Two more Marines entered, then another pair, and commands rang back and forth as they engaged in combat on the other ship. More Marines entered, until the entire squad was in the hangar. The second squad launched itself across the space, another twelve heavily armed and armored Marines. More hot spots appeared on the hangar hatch, and one point blew out as something powerful struck.

“Hangar is secure,” came the voice of the senior Marine Sergeant over the com. “You can start sending the spacers over.”

That meant Nagawa’s group, and he lifted from the deck and headed out, crossing the space between the ships as quickly as possible. He still had time for a glance upwards, through the combined fields, into the red emptiness of hyperspace. It sent a shiver down his spine, but he was back inside in moments.

The hangar looked like a battle had been fought. Two Marine suits lay on the floor, one unmoving, a large hole burned through the torso. The other was still moving, but was missing an arm, and one of the newly arrived spacers, a medic, was kneeling by the Marine. There were holes in several places along the walls of the hangar, a shuttle was a total wreck in the middle of the chamber, while another had a hole through the cockpit. Scorch marks were everywhere, the sign of particle beams fired with abandon. And there were a half dozen small armored suits laying in attitudes of death, as well as one that was about the size of a medium suited human, though of non-human design.

I met Les Johnson at Liberty Con 2014, where he was a guest scientist and author. I talked with him while getting a couple of his books signed. I remember asking him if he was going to quit his day job, something most authors dream of, and was surprised by the answer. Because to Les Johnson, NASA scientist, it was not just about the paycheck. He has a true calling, to help mankind to conquer first the solar system, then journey to the Stars. This year, at Dragon Con, Les stated during a presentation about solar sails that he wanted to get a footnote citation in the first textbook about the founding of the Alpha Centauri colony. Most authors want to get on the New York Times best seller list. Les wants to really make history, for the benefit of humankind. You can meet Les at Liberty Con, Dragon Con or the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, where you will find a friendly guy who is enthusiastic about his work without the least shred of the arrogance often found among the very intelligent. He has contributed to the projects such as the National Geographic Documentary Evacuate Earth, and gives talks about space all over the country. An example is this TEDx talk. He has also written hard science fiction with Ben Bova and Travis Taylor.

Now most people who follow me know that I write fanciful far future science fiction. This allows me to make up my tech, my settings, and avoid a lot of the painstaking research that goes into travelling around our own system, where we know so much, and yet things are constantly changing as we learn more. Writing near future hard science fiction is hard. Bova specializes in this, and Les was a good choice for a co-author of Rescue Mode. Rescue mode follows an expedition to Mars that goes very wrong. Using the best information that we have today, Johnson and Bova craft a tale of explorers who have to make the hard decisions to survive disaster. And that’s all I’m going to say. Read the book. Back to the Moon is a tale of a rescue mission to the Moon. I have read both of these books. I normally read space opera, though I have read all of Bova’s Solar System series. Both of these books taught this author that you can still write a good story set on our closest neighbors. Both were highly entertaining as well as educational, and I can’t recommend them enough. The reason this blog is coming out today is that Rescue Mode is actually out in paperback today. So, for those who don’t like eBooks, and can’t afford hard covers, here you go.

And now, in Les’ own words, (which he asked me to say are his own and do not reflect those of his employer!), where will we be going next:

Moon or Mars?

That’s a question I am often asked regarding where we should send people when we are soon able to (again) travel beyond Earth orbit. Those who ask typically have their own idea of where that should be – and they are usually very passionate about it. Unfortunately, given the state of our technology, we are pretty much limited to the Moon, Mars or an asteroid.

The Moon: Going back to the Moon is probably the easiest, technically and financially. We’ve been to the Moon before and we know how to design the rockets to get us there and back. We’ve continued studying the Moon since Apollo and we know that it would be possible to establish a permanent human presence there if we want to do so. If we go back, then we can 1) erect radio telescopes on the lunar farside – the best place in the solar system for radio astronomy, 2) assess the viability of mining He3 for future Earth-based fusion energy production, 3) assess the Moon as a source of raw materials for building space solar power stations on the Moon or in Earth orbit, 4) learn to live and work off planet as a first step toward us becoming an interplanetary species.

Asteroids: If we want to develop a space-based economy, then we need to learn how to locate, mine and use the raw materials in Near-Earth asteroids. Asteroids are the left over building blocks of the planets and they contain all the raw materials we will need to sustain our technological civilization – hopefully (eventually) replacing Earth-based deep pit mining. Many elements that are rare on Earth are readily available in there. They can also be used as a source of raw materials for building space solar power stations.

Mars: The Holy Grail of human exploration has always been Mars. Wernher Von Braun cited it as his ultimate goal and people have dreamed of going there since we first began peering at the Red Planet through our telescopes. Getting to Mars will be difficult, but not impossible. NASA is building the Space Launch System (SLS) which, when combined with commercial launch of fuel and other elements, will easily loft the massive systems needed to carry humans to and from the surface of Mars. The technologies required to keep the crew alive in a deep space habitat exist. The systems for landing and launching from the surface of Mars can be made from today’s technologies as well. The astronauts can be protected from solar radiation during the voyage and there shouldn’t be a problem with the life support systems (thanks to years of development experience on the International Space Station). It will be expensive, but not prohibitively so.

But to make any of these exciting futures happen, we have to stop the bickering and infighting. The Moon advocates need to accept that we may go for Mars and skip the Moon for now. The Mars advocates may have to wait until after we establish a colony on the Moon. And the asteroid exploration supporters may have cool their heels until better technologies come along to make asteroid exploration and exploitation more economically viable. Lastly, the NASA bashers and the New Space critics need to learn how to support each other if we are ever going to become an interplanetary species. There are roles for both governments and commercial companies in the endeavor. We need to learn to stop fighting among ourselves and focus instead on making a positive future for humanity in space.

So what are you waiting for, Below are the links to Les’ work, both science fiction and science fact. Again, highly recommended by this author and science fiction fan.

Les Johnson is a Baen science fiction author, popular science writer, and NASA technologist. His most recent science fiction novel, Rescue Mode, is about the first human mission to Mars and was coauthored with Ben Bova. It will be released in paperback September 29, 2015. But don’t let that fool you into thinking Les is only thinking of going to Mars. His first novel, Back to the Moon, is a tale that Analog Magazine called, “a book to thrill.” His next novel, The Asteroid, will be released in 2016. To learn more about Les, please visit his website at www.lesjohnsonauthor.com.

So Saturday dawns, the official second day of the Con, and really the showcase. This is the day that features the largest crowd, the longest lines, and waiting. The day passes are in evidence this day, the one day attendees crowding the hotels. And it is the day of the Parade.

This year the Parade had forty-seven groups entered. A group could be something like the Battlestar Galactica cosplayers, or Starwars, or Superheroes. They had a Game of Thrones group this year, and a Box Superhero group. Missing this year was the company of Iron-men, while Deadpool seemed to be this year’s favorite character. The Guests of Honor rode in the parade in cars, and included Ms. Nichelle Nichols (Uhura from Star Trek), James Randi (The Amazing Randi, famous debunker), and Peter Hamilton (author). It didn’t start until ten, which made me miss the early panel I wanted to get to. Still, I’m amazed they were able to get that many people up from partying Friday to get in their costumes and walk the route. They changed the route this year so more people could view the parade, at the request of the City of Atlanta. The new route included several parking garages, allowing people to fill up the levels to see the parade. From what I heard, that was hell on some of the cars that had people climbing all over them. To me, the coolest thing about the Parade is seeing all of the imaginative costumes. Some were very simple, some complicated, some cheap, some expensive, and some very labor intensive. Working wings, Iron-man and Robocop suits, costumes from famous and obscure series.

I left the Parade early because I wanted to make an 11:30 AM panel and didn’t want the lines to stop me. Here’s where I get to mention Dragon Con TV. In past years, when I had stayed in offsite hotels, I had only seen Dragon Con TV when attending panels that had wall mounted screens. They showed very funny, imaginative and silly skits based on popular TV and movies. This year, staying in one of the host hotels, I was able to watch Dragon Con TV in the morning and before going to bed. More skits, funny commercials, and replays of the big events. Saturday night I was able to watch the rest of the Parade with comments. At the 11:30 panel I wanted to get a book signed by Larry Correia. He was in a hurry, but still found the time to scribble a signature in my copy of Hard Magic.

After two panels I was ready to head to the Market, where all the venders are set up. I really enjoy my time going through the hundreds of tables, looking for a book, or even more important, a signed book. Or some nick nack that just catches the eye. This year the line was stretching around two blocks, and I just had to give up on that. Dragon Con needs more vender space, and a shorter wait to get into it. I‘m not really sure how they’re going to handle that, so I’m guessing the space is just going to get more and more crowded. After the first year I have made it a point to stick with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature and Writers tracks, which feature many of the guests I want to see, authors and editors, and are the most likely to help my career moving forward. Not to say I won’t go to some of the other tracks, but if I do, I try to get there very early, as the lines can be unreal. Atlanta was cooler than usual this year, so there wasn’t the intense summer heat to deal with, but standing in line for an hour, only to be turned away at the entrance to the event, is not one of my favorite things. And this year the lines seemed to be longer than ever.

I attended one space panels given by my friend, NASA Scientist Les Johnson, about solar sails. Les is both a science fiction writer and a hard core scientist. He is working on solar sail missions at this time, and his enthusiasm is catching. Les had encouraged me to attend the Mars panels on Sunday, but after that panel I saw how that would go. The room was packed, and as soon as the old crowd filed out at the end of the presentation, is was repacked with an entirely new crowd that had been waiting outside. So I was back to the Embassy rooms for most of the rest of the day. There was one really cool incident when coming out of the Space Track presentation. There was a large group of Deadpools gathered in the Hilton Lobby. Singing, dancing, chanting. There were traditional Deadpools, Deadpool variations, male and female, and shapes and sized. Only to be seen at Dragon Con.

I worked my way over to the Westin for one panel, the Alternate Warfare talk with Eric Flint, Jack Campbell and Taylor Anderson, among others. I talked with a young guy in the Navy while waiting for the doors to open. He was a scifi fan, and I talked to him about my own books and passed on one of my cards. An older gentleman and his wife came over and sat next to us, having heard our talk, and they received cards as well. If you are a writer, you need to carry cards with your author page, website, email and other contact information. I was low on cards for this Dragon Con, but still stretched them out until Monday morning. After that it was back to the Hyatt for one more panel, then the fight through the crush between hotels to get to the Marriott elevator bank.

I settled down in my room to do some writing, and watched the Costume Contest on TV. Again, there were some very imaginative costumes, and some that were very simple. I didn’t agree with any of the winners, but that was just me.

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest is out on Amazon. Refuge is my most popular fantasy series, more of a cross genre offering of high fantasy and military techno-thriller. It is nowhere near as popular as my Exodus series, but I will continue on with at least one new book a year as long as I’m able. I have enough people asking me to continue the series, and I have a lot of research, development and worldbuilding invested to keep my own interest in it. Kurt von Mannerheim, the main protagonist, is an Immortal, a human with abilities far greater than those of any normal human, and what looks to be a limitless lifespan. He has been prophesized to be the savior of the world of Refuge from the evil of the Dark Gods. A veteran of the Wehrmacht, fighting on the Russian Front in the army of Hitler, Kurt really wants nothing to do with power. Unfortunately, the job is his, unless he wants to see this world ruled by a being even worse than the madman of twentieth century Earth. While the armies of the alliance, humans from the American and German armies of Earth, as well as many of the native Elves and Dwarves, and the native human races, are rolling over the armies of the evil Ellala Emperor, a party of his strongest warriors, priests and assassins are on a mission to find the Crown of the Lost Gods, and artifact capable of ruling the minds of millions. Kurt and his closest friends, the Immortal American Jackie Smith, the Physicist/Natural Mage James Drake, Garios na Gonron of the Mountain Dwarves, and Fenris Hallanta of the Ellala, must quest to stop the men of the Emperor.

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command is also out in time for those Christmas kindles. Three 15,000 word novelettes covering the smartest men and women of the Fleet, Exploration Command. In Retribution, missionaries from the Empire are found well beyond its bounds, helping to raise an alien race back from the primitive state they had been left in by rampaging pirates. Or are they? In Timeless, a derelict tens of millions of years old is found in orbit around a dead planet circling a dying star. There are some indications of working machinery aboard. But how can something that old still be functioning? And does the secret of its operation point to a long sought after technology for the Empire? In They Don’t Care, aliens are destroying all intelligent life within range of their homeworld. An Exploration Command team is determined to stop them, but can they with only a pair of ships?

Finally, Five By Five 3: Target Zone, is also available on Amazon. Featuring stories by New York Times best sellers Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole, as well as Prometheus Award Winners Dani and Eytan Kollin, as well as Baen Author Sarah A. Hoyt, I am proud to offer a story of the Exodus Universe among this august company. In Goliath, a Fleet captain must find a way to defeat a Ca’cadasan Battleship two hundred and fifty times the mass of her frigate. I loved writing this story, and think my fans will enjoy it. And it’s only available in Five By Five 3.

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year. I look forward to the coming year, and the production of more fiction.

Just received notice yesterday that the anthology Five By Five 3: Target Zone is out on all the normal venues. This includes Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Smashwords and iBooks, and it is also available on Amazon as a print book, and will be available elsewhere in tree and ink. And the coolest thing, to this writer at least? I’m included in this volume, with a brand new 15,000 word Exodus: Empires at War novella, Goliath, that can only be seen here. Also included are two New York Times Bestsellers, Kevin J. Anderson (who also edited) and Michael A. Stackpole. Rounding out the lineup is Baen author Sarah A. Hoyt and Prometheus Award Winners Eytan and Dani Kollin. Whew, what a lineup. Even if I was not included I would recommend this book based on the other four (actually five, but Eytan and Dani work as a team).

I encourage all of my fans, especially those of the Exodus series, to buy this book. I am hoping that those who don’t know about Exodus will find enough in my story to look up the series and jump on board. Goliath is not the first story I sent to Kevin for possible inclusion in this anthology. Retribution was written in a similar style to my novels, with many characters and points of view. Kevin wanted major changes, but I decided, now that I knew what he wanted, to give him a different story and save that one for another time. It will be coming out in about a week with two more novellas about Exploration Command, the exploratory branch of the New Terran Empire Fleet. Goliath deals with warriors, New Terran Empire spacers faced with an unwinnable situation when a Ca’cadasan battleship comes calling on a lightly defended system. Commander Cynda Klerk soon finds herself facing the twenty-five million ton behemoth with the only surviving warship in the system, a ninety thousand ton frigate. Her ship was built to patrol and screen, to fight the occasional pirate, not take on the most awe inspiring ship of the current war. Her choices are to hide, insuring the survival of her ship and crew, but allowing the fifty thousand settlers of the one inhabitable planet in the system to perish. Or to battle the Goliath, pitting her David against a ship that out masses hers by two hundred times. The second choice seems like suicide, and of no help to the civilians, who will die anyway, no matter what she does. But the Ca’cadasans, who have had problems with human ingenuity in the past, find once again that you can’t take the hairless primates for granted. I think Goliath is an action packed tale like those my readers have come to expect in the Exodus: Empires at War novels. It has allowed me to explore the novella form, and I expect I will revisit that length of story again in the future (though, as said above, three more novella length stories will be coming out soon in one volume).

The Exodus series is doing well. The last five books of the, so far, seven book series, have hit the top five in Space Opera and Military Sci-fi at Amazon.US, and have made it to number one at Amazon.UK in the same categories. But, like most authors, I would like to have more readers. I was very excited when Kevin asked me to submit to this anthology. It was an honor for a relatively unknown. And I hope it leads to even more opportunities down the road. And now the links.

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/490252
It's also on iBooks, but we don't have the link yet, and is to be featured in the Baen eBook Library in December. I hope everyone who buys this book enjoys it. And I will keep on putting out stuff for you to read.